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MinamiCon once more! Definitely my home convention, as chilled as chilled can be.

On studio duty as usual but not many shoots outside of that – however did cover the live music event, debuting Super Limit Break, a cover band formed of good friends of mine who’ve had this in the works for several years!

The chilltastic MinamiCon hits its 21st year and doesn’t disappoint. It’s been a while since I’ve properly enjoyed a con and not felt I absolutely had to have a camera surgically attached to my face the entire time!

For those who’ve joined UK conventions through the manic MCM ComicCons or the nightlife of a KitaCon might not be well prepared for the laid-back, old-school nature of Minami, it’s a classic convention in the model of days past. Simpler times with a much more local feel. Cosplay is often not to the grandiose scale you see at the large events – although that isn’t always true! – but for many of us this is where we started, and it’s the con we wind down at. Even the Masquerade will have a dozen prizes for categories made up on the spot, specifically to neuter the drama that can spawn from a competitive event.

While large ComicCons will boot you out after a manic day, and while party cons will blare out music until 2 in the morning, what does Minami do? Sets up a giant room of homemade kotatsus and cushions, fills it with board games and says have at it. Also karaoke. Wouldn’t miss it for the world.

KitaCon returns! Back at the Birmingham Hilton Metropole, across a pond from the NEC I was at the previous week no less!

Kita has made for itself the name of the UK party con, and it lives up to it in full force. There’s been a shift from cosplayers milling about during the day making full use of the pretty venue and the lovely outdoors for photoshoots to mostly empty corridors and people crammed into panels or sleeping off the previous night to make way for the next big party!

A combination of that, being busy, and being a bit on the lazy side means it’s a bit light on the floor costume shots, there were plenty of other photographers and videographers around so hopefully no one is going without.

On the other hand if you got on the stage over the weekend then prepare for a barrage of shots. Pretty lighting and and the lovely Lulu Rose as my glamorous assistant means we’ve got you covered. Keep an eye out for her shots, this is her first convention properly using a DSLR and I’m proud to include them in the gallery.

And so a chapter is closed in UK convention history. Ayacon Apocalypse sees the last of the much beloved convention in a final blaze of glory. Warwick’s stunning venue is lauded as one of if not the best any of our events are hosted at and this year it outdid itself. The local costcutter volunteered to open 24 hours (and stocked up on pallets full of half-price Mountain Dew), plenty of places to eat were available at all hours, rooms were open til crazy late for everything from partying to chilling. Events ran silky smooth, preparations abound, and both setup and takedown ran like clockwork.

It’s a real shame to see it come to an end and I hope other events take a book full of notes from what Aya does right.

Unfortunately in a bid to drop some of the major burnout I’ve suffered for some time now, I’ve taken a bit of a break on the photo front. I don’t seem to have been alone, much of the atmosphere was a relaxed one and people wanting to savour the last Ayacon rather than spend it behind or posed in front of cameras all day. Between all of us I think we’ve still got the event covered but this does mean everyone may have to hunt all of our galleries to get everything they’re after. Apologies for that.

Not many people doing filming this time, everyone seems to be sticking to the larger commercial events, I’ve yet to take stock of how much I’ve got but for the same reasons as above it might need to be a collaborative effort. I know I’ve got some good stuff, but overall I think we all really just wanted to enjoy this event rather than work our asses off and stress for it.

Now fully into its new brand, MCM ComicCon landed on a gloriously-weathered weekend (ignoring the dismal Friday) and once again hit record attendance, I’m hearing about 76,000 strong?

A proper run for the new steadicam rig, although amidst desk duty, masquerade duty and dodging the other half dozen steadicam operators in force, I didn’t get nearly as much time as I’d have liked out and about. The gallery is sadly looking a little thin once more. Clearly I need more minions.

Always my official start to the convention year, MinamiCon rolls around once more in time-honoured tradition. No other event is as much of an institution as turning up to that Novotel lobby to already see crowds of familiar faces like we never left it the previous year!

A much more relaxed event than most in recent memory, as if there was a collective LETS TAKE A BREAK FROM RIDICULOUS COSTUMES FOR ONCE and I think it was a good move, certainly meant I wasn’t running around like a headless chicken for once! Still plenty of lovely costumes to take pictures of at leisure, and I think overall comfort levels were higher for it. This year the convention started earlier and finished later, crammed a lot more events in, and ran a chillout kotatsu lounge after the closing ceremony, filled with makeshift kotatsus, duvets, pillows, and many, many games. Probably one of my favourite Minamis to date.